Days of Innocence and Wonder (Lucy Treloar, Picador)
Tuesday, 26 September 2023
Lucy Treloar’s third novel centres on a woman named Till, whose life was cleaved in two when her childhood friend E was kidnapped right before her eyes 18 years ago—‘nothing...
A Woman of Courage (Tania Blanchard, HarperCollins)
Tuesday, 26 September 2023
Set in the late 1800s in Ebberfield, northern England, Tania Blanchard’s A Woman of Courage is an engrossing historical fiction work about the suffragette movement. Recent teaching graduate Hannah Todd dreams...
Penguin Oh Penguin (Gladys Milroy, illus Helen Milroy, Magabala)
Tuesday, 19 September 2023
Penguin Oh Penguin is a mother/daughter collaboration between Palyku women Gladys and Helen Milroy, and a charming picture book for early childhood. Gladys Milroy, author of Silver Leaves, wrote this...
Into Your Arms: Nick Cave’s songs reimagined (ed by Kirsten Krauth, Fremantle)
Tuesday, 19 September 2023
Short story anthology Into Your Arms draws on what editor Kirsten Krauth calls the ‘deep, rich and often dark vein’ of Nick Cave’s musical oeuvre. Twenty-one Australian writers (several of...
The In-Between (Christos Tsiolkas, A&U)
Tuesday, 19 September 2023
Christos Tsiolkas’s The In-Between begins with Perry, a man past his youth, preparing to go on a date. He’s nervous about meeting Ivan, the stranger he will have dinner with,...
A Brilliant Life (Rachelle Unreich, Hachette)
Tuesday, 19 September 2023
A Holocaust story is never an easy read, but A Brilliant Life has such a harrowing prologue that it throws the reader right into the thick of it, so be prepared....
Women & Children (Tony Birch, UQP)
Tuesday, 12 September 2023
Tony Birch’s latest novel, Women & Children, is a thoughtful and profound story of a working-class family doing their best to resist a system that’s geared against them. In 1965...
Crow Baby (Helen Milroy, Fremantle)
Tuesday, 12 September 2023
Set in a time long ago, when the universe was newly created and things were ‘unpredictable and unique’, a baby is born containing two spirits—one human and one crow. The...
An Unexpected Party (ed by Seth Malacari, Fremantle)
Tuesday, 12 September 2023
The queer experience is immensely diverse, too vast and evolving as a space to be summed up by any one representation, but An Unexpected Party—an anthology of queer speculative short stories—aims...
Artichoke to Zucchini (Alice Oehr, Scribble)
Tuesday, 5 September 2023
If you’re looking for an A–Z book with a twist, Alice Oehr’s Artichoke to Zucchini: An alphabet of delicious things from around the world is it. From ubiquitous bananas to...
Mrs Winterbottom Takes a Gap Year (Joanna Nell, Hachette)
Tuesday, 5 September 2023
‘Books with heart and humour,’ reads the tagline of author Joanna Nell’s website, and her latest book, Mrs Winterbottom Takes a Gap Year, is no exception. After the bestselling The...
World (Martine Murray, illus Anna Read, Parachute Press)
Tuesday, 5 September 2023
World is the third collaboration between author Martine Murray and illustrator Anna Read and is another powerful fable. A man leaves the city and comes to the forest with an axe...
Ask Aunty: Seasons (Aunty Munya Andrews, illus Charmaine Ledden-Lewis, HGE)
Tuesday, 5 September 2023
Seasons provide a beautiful and poetic lens through which to begin understanding a culture, and the brief cross-section that Ask Aunty invites us to peer into is brimming with knowledge and ways of...
Epic: Adventures across Aotearoa (Ray Salisbury, Exisle)
Tuesday, 5 September 2023
Covering 10 iconic journeys around and across Aotearoa New Zealand, Ray Salisbury retells each adventurer’s inspiring and often harrowing trek, working from first-hand accounts in blogs and books to bring...
The Vanishing Point (Andrea Hotere, Ultimo)
Tuesday, 29 August 2023
Journalist and researcher Andrea Hotere has put her investigative skills to work in The Vanishing Point: a dual-timeline historical mystery novel concerning Diego Velázquez’s 1656 royal portrait, Las Meninas. In 17th-century...
Everything Under the Moon (ed by Michael Earp, illus Kit Fox, Affirm)
Tuesday, 29 August 2023
Everything Under the Moon: Fairy tales in a queerer light is a collection of insightful stories from a variety of authors, including Michael Earp, Alison Evans, Helena Fox, Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner,...
The Things We Live With (Gemma Nisbet, Upswell)
Tuesday, 29 August 2023
Gemma Nisbet is a writer and journalist who holds onto things, but this book isn’t about hoarding. It’s not even a self-help antidote to ‘Marie Kondo-ing’ your stuff. In this...
Home to Biloela (Priya Nadesalingam with Rebekah Holt, A&U)
Tuesday, 22 August 2023
Raw and poignant, Priya Nadesalingam’s Home to Biloela is a personal account of what became a national campaign to bring one family home. It provides an intimate insight into the well-known story...
Giinagay Gaagal, Hello Ocean (Melissa Greenwood, ABC Books)
Tuesday, 22 August 2023
With Giinagay Gaagal, Hello Ocean, Gumbaynggirr artist Melissa Greenwood, from the NSW region known as Coffs Harbour, once again gifts us with a beautiful ode to family and the land....
Gunflower (Laura Jean McKay, Scribe)
Tuesday, 22 August 2023
Laura Jean McKay’s Gunflower is a vivid and tantalising short story collection where animals are as seamlessly anthropomorphised as humans are animalised. McKay asks readers to suspend their narrative expectations and blurs...
What to Do When You’re Not Sure What to Do (Davina Bell, illus Hilary Jean Tapper, Lothian)
Tuesday, 22 August 2023
‘Some things need careful hands ... It’s always good to ask first ... Remember to look up! And look down.’ These are some of the little snippets of advice offered in...
The Observologist (Giselle Clarkson, Gecko)
Tuesday, 22 August 2023
An observologist is someone who makes scientific expeditions every day and notices interesting details in the world around them. This is the first thing we learn in The Observologist by Giselle Clarkson,...
Unholy Terrors (Lyndall Clipstone, Penguin)
Tuesday, 15 August 2023
Unholy Terrors is an alluring, gothic tale of forbidden love and shifting allegiances in a land of magic and monsters. Everline Blackthorn is not like the other wardens who guard...
Zero Risk: Keeping others safe in a dangerous world (Tony Loughran, Echo)
Tuesday, 15 August 2023
Tony Loughran’s memoir, Zero Risk, certainly lives up to his motto—‘I’d rather spend one year as a tiger than a hundred years as a sheep’. From his rough-and-tumble—and then outright...
Kinky History (Esmé Louise James, Pantera)
Tuesday, 15 August 2023
Kinky History is based on the wildly popular TikTok account we all needed. Author Esmé Louise James (@esme.louisee) is a TikTok phenomenon with over 2.3 million followers, and it’s pretty...
Nikki Hind: Dressed for success (John Dickson, illus Chantel de Sousa, Berbay)
Tuesday, 15 August 2023
Nikki Hind: Dressed for Success is part of Vision Australia’s Big Vision series that profiles Australian people living with blindness or low vision. It’s a short biography of Nikki Hind,...
A–Z of Who I Could Be (Chloe Dalton, illus Kim Siew, A&U)
Tuesday, 15 August 2023
A–Z of Who I Could Be showcases 26 Australian top-performing female and non-binary athletes across 26 different sports. Chloe Dalton presents us with the likes of Ash Barty, Nova Peris,...
Prima Facie (Suzie Miller, Picador)
Tuesday, 8 August 2023
Prima Facie, Suzie Miller’s debut novel (adapted from her internationally award-winning 2019 play of the same name), is a relentless, arresting story of a criminal defence barrister whose passionate faith...
If You Tell Anyone, You’re Next (Jack Heath, Scholastic)
Tuesday, 8 August 2023
Bestselling author Jack Heath has written 40 books for children, teenagers and adults. He returns with a pulse-racing psychological thriller set in a suburban high school. Zoe’s best friend Jayden...
Salt River Road (Molly Schmidt, Fremantle)
Tuesday, 8 August 2023
Radio producer, journalist and now award-winning writer Molly Schmidt has poured her heart into her first book Salt River Road. ‘Write what you know’, they say, and having lost her...
